Isaac Bell

1906: For two years, the western states of America have been suffering a string of bank robberies by a man who cold-bloodedly murders all witnesses and then vanishes without a trace. No-nonsense detective Isaac Bell soon discovers he is pursuing the sharpest criminal mind he has ever encountered, and the woman who seems to hold the key to the bandit's identity.

It is 1906, and in New York the Italian crime group known as the Black Hand is on a spree of kidnapping, extortion and arson. Detective Isaac Bell of the Van Dorn Agency is hired to form a special Black Hand Squad, but the gangsters appear to be everywhere. Then the murders begin, each one of a man more powerful than the last, and as Bell discovers, to his dismay, the ultimate target may be the most powerful man of all.

A century apart, NUMA Director Dirk Pitt and detective Isaac Bell team up to unlock the truth about the most famous maritime disaster of all time. 

In the present day, Pitt makes a daring rescue from inside an antiquated submersible in the waters off New York City. His reward afterwards is a document left behind a century earlier by legendary detective Isaac Bell - a document that re-opens a historical mystery... 

In 1911, in Colorado, Isaac Bell is asked to look into an unexplained tragedy at Little Angel Mine, in which nine people died. His dangerous quest to answer the riddle leads to a larger puzzle centered on byzanium, a rare element with extraordinary powers and of virtually incalculable value.

Book 11 in the Isaac Bell series.

Detective Isaac Bell's wife has said that he is always in the wrong place at the right time. This is certainly the case when Bell thwarts the attempted assassination of a United States Senator shortly after meeting the man. This heroic rescue is just the start of the mystery for Bell, who suspects that the would-be assassins have a much larger and more dangerous agenda--one involving the nearly constructed Panama Canal. While the Senator supports the building of the canal, there are many, including a local Panamanian insurgency known as the Red Vipers, who never want to see the its completion.

With millions of dollars and the fates of two nations at stake, Bell heads to Panama to find answers. After a deadly bombing at the Canal's construction site, he is determined to stop the insurgents--or whoever is funding them--before they can attack again.